EUDC (an abbreviation for European Universities Debating Championships) was held for the first time in its current form in 1999. Erasmus Debating Society, connected to the Erasmus University Rotterdam organised it. The tournament started on a small scale: the first EUDC had 32 teams. In the years after, EUDC has grown to become the most important debating event in Europe: it has the largest number of participants and the best judges. Tallinn EUDC 2008 and Newcastle EUDC 2009 had around 160 teams. We are expecting around 200 teams for Amsterdam Euros 2010.

You can find a table in the middle with an overview of the number of participating teams, the total number of participants and the effective primary reach for communications by EUDC since 1999. More about the history and organisation of EUDC can be found at the Council website.

Year Organised in Team number Participant number Effective Reach Winners ESL Winners
1999 Rotterdam 32 80 800 Oxford A Deree College A
2000 Aberdeen 64 160 1600 Oxford A Tartu
2001 Slovenia 63 158 1575 Inner Temple Erasmus Rotterdam B
2002 Haifa 40 100 1000 Oxford C Hebrew Jerusalem A
2003 Zagreb 100 250 2500 Bristol A Erasmus Rotterdam A
2004 Durham 72 180 1800 Utrecht Debating Society A IDC Herzliya A
2005 Cork 112 280 2800 Durham A Erasmus Rotterdam A
2006 Berlin 164 410 4100 Oxford A Bonn A
2007 Koç 168 420 4200 Cambridge B Tallinn Red
2008 Tallinn 160 400 4000 Oxford A Babes-Bolyai A
2009 Newcastle 164 400 4000 Oxford A Leiden A
2010 Amsterdam 192 600 6000 King’s Inns Ljubljana A

DebatersWe expect around 600 participants in 2010 (debaters and judges). One team consists of two debaters. All institutional delegations larger than 1 team fall under the so-called ‘N-1 rule’. This means that the institution will send a number of judges equal to the number of teams minus one. We could not find the exact number of judges for each year, so we have made conservative estimates of the number of judges – assuming that the number of judges was half that of the number of teams. With 32 teams, there were thus 16 judges present and therefore 80 participants in total, excluding the organisation and volunteers.

The primary reach of EUDC is, however, much higher than the number of participants. First of all, institutions may send observers as well as judges and debaters. Secondly, most debating institutions in Europe hold selection tournaments to determine who will participate in EUDC. The selection tournaments indirectly increase the reach of EUDC significantly. According to a conservative estimate, delegations consist of only 10% of all members of a debating institution. The percentage for ASDV Bonaparte is much lower: last year Bonaparte sent three teams and two judges, eight persons altogether, while our society has 200 members.

Besides the primary reach, EUDC has secondary reach for its communications as well: traffic at the website, media messages, et cetera. This reach is hard to estimate but will be several times higher than the primary reach.